It’s neat, but the “remote CSR” thing is a solution looking for a problem.
I thought the same thing when I set up our Asterisk servers. I can sit at home and answer the phone at any of our stores. Connected through remote desktop, take orders.
Neat, but who cares. Why would you want to do this? There is a whole list of reasons why it is better and easier to just be in the store when taking orders over the phone.
I know that when I’m sitting on the beach in Hawaii, the last thing I want to do it get my laptop out and take orders for pizza.
RG, you’re most likely right…
The point about Hawaii, was that, unlike with AT&T, I’m not restricted to the local region, prefix. Its an entirely different game being able to forward the calls to anywhere - not just your home town.
Why would you want to do this? There is a whole list of reasons why it is better and easier to just be in the store when taking orders over the phone.
When we’re slammed, operating space becomes a real issue. Its just not practical or efficient to have so many people ‘in the way.’ There’s only so much room. Too many people in the store with too little room, much better to off-site those 2 or 3 phone ops. I’d rather not have employees tripping over one another. Also, its next to impossible to schedule someone for only 2 or 3 hours per shift.
I see a real need for this and having the capability will allow me to put people to work on limited schedules, who otherwise wouldn’t be interested in working due to the commute and short schedule.
I agree, this is not of interest to a lot of business models (because of OLO), but I don’t see that being strong for us anytime in the near future. This would really help us out of some peak jams.
I’m not familiar with Asterisk, but these are ‘virtual’ terminals - not additional physical PCs.
I’ve only had to do a remote things once…
it was my day off (Sunday…I hate working Sundays…lol…)
but as luck would have it…quite short staffed and BUSY…
so I became the phone operator & took orders while they regrouped for an hour or so…
turned the reigns back to the shop & finished my beer & the game…
sure beats having to drive there & un*stuck a bigger mess…
OH YES!!!
I’m sure Piper will love this…
So I call AT&T today to make sure (everything) was okay on the transfer. I was a customer for over 3 years. They said, your account has been terminated, you’ll get your final bill in a month. Your final bill will include an early termination penalty of $1004.00 because your account was “automatically RENEWED” a few months back. Great. I won’t go into the problems I’ve had with their ‘advertising’ auto-renewal. So add up all those problems and the super-high rates and next to no flexibility and you (maybe not Piper) can understand why I was looking for a better way forward for telephony, hence VOIP. Dumb me, I thought after the 3 years were up, we were on month to month. Oh no. Not so. So yup, I’ll assume the ignorance tax (Piper will love that).
My point in this post, is to make other TT’s aware of their existing contracts and that MOST BIG corporations have AUTO-RENEWAL in all their contracts, cable, wireless, etc… The new company, Nextiva, doesn’t require a contract. So, be aware, if you’re ending an existing contract, you’ll need to send a letter RRR 60 days in advance of the end of contract indicating your cancellation of contract at the end, just to protect yourself.
Here’s the tricky part… in reviewing my actions, I would have had to send the RRR (Registered Return Receipt) 2 months in advance of the end of my AT&T contract - thats if I remembered or knew of the auto-renew (hoping they didn’t cancel upon receipt) before the port (transfer of existing phone numbers). Numbers cannot be ported if the account is closed.
Ouch, ouch, ouch, I’m still ouching over this one!! Just when I thought I’d paid most of my stupid taxes.